How £100,000 will be spent tackling homelessness in Telford

Measures to tackle the root causes of homelessness are to be rolled out across Telford.

Telford & Wrekin Council has pledged to spend £100,000 of its Telford50 legacy fund to prevent people from becoming homeless.

Ideas include training to help people prove to prospective landlords that they are responsible tenants and the recruitment of a mental health worker for homeless people.

A resettlement officers trained to help offenders back into society and a life coach to help with prepare people for employment and training will also be hired.

A drive for volunteers will be led by a new volunteer link co-ordinator, who will help assist homeless people and be a main point of contact for community donations.

Councillor Richard Overton, Telford & Wrekin Council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for housing, said: "The projects to be funded are mainly about tackling the underlying causes of homelessness such as mental health, not having a job and poor life skills.

"The common perception of homelessness tends to be people seen sleeping rough but in actual fact, homelessness is a complex issue.

"There are numerous reasons why people may lose their home and sometimes the loss may be through no fault of their own.

"Not all homeless people live on the street – some people may have access to some form of shelter some of the time but not on a stable, long term basis."

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Priority

Councillor Overton said the council had made homelessness a key priority.

"We are extremely fortunate in Telford and Wrekin to have excellent partnerships with a range of local organisations who have all worked hard to prevent homelessness over many years," he said.

"We recognised at an early stage that preventing homelessness should be a priority with the aim being helping people to remain in their own home or to help source other accommodation to prevent homelessness.

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"Along with partners and services throughout the borough, we aim to provide a service that produces personal housing plans for clients to help them access suitable accommodation."

Almost 1,400 people took part in a survey asking how Telford50 money should be spent.

"One of the areas identified was homelessness," Councillor Overton said.

"As part of the 50th anniversary of Telford, we announced £2m towards legacy projects which are designed to ensure that the celebrations have a lasting impact for years to come.

"We allocated £100,000 towards preventing and tackling homelessness and the aim is for the money to be used to address the root causes of what makes people at risk of becoming homeless.”